I don't think it's necessarily a matter of intelligence. I'm also very skeptical about so-called “fake news” and the better informed supporting liberal democratic policies and the less informed supporting populist policies. I think a lot has to do with self-perceived economic and cultural, as well as gender, interests.

Study after study shows that urban people with higher levels of education, for example, support European integration. People have said that it's because they're smarter. No, they're better educated and live in urban centres and these are the people and the places that profit the most from European integration. If you're less educated and you live in the industrial periphery, like the Rust Belt, you get less out of that. I think both have self-interest. I don't think, systematically, people make decisions that are that much different.

Does that mean the liberal democrats have failed those people who now vote for the populist radical right? Are these the so-called “losers” of modernization? Only a small subset of them are. This is one of the biggest problems. We have this cliché image of white working-class men, pretty much, who are the support base of these parties, but it's only a small portion of the larger point.

On top of that, many of these men have not been hit hardest by the system. Non-white minorities have been hit much harder. Women have been hit much harder. It's about, first of all, whether you feel grievances, and—I think this is very important—whether those grievances are acknowledged by the broader community. This is where we all play a role. After Trump won, we had article after article about the poor white male in the Rust Belt, who yes, has issues, but what about older African-American men and women who live in the depleted cities? They were again written out of the story, so they don't get a voice. I think it's a bit more complex.

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